The 22nd of January will mark half a century to the day since Hawthorn's Jaguar 3.4-litre sedan - as it was then known - crashed on the A3 Guildford bypass, an accident that has been shrouded in mystery ever since.

Since 1959 speculation over the cause of death has covered driver error, mechanical failures and blackout.

Rob Walker, a friend of Hawthorns had been driving a Mercedes just ahead of his Jaguar. Walker said it was as he stopped at the A3 junction that he first noticed Hawthorn's green vehicle which went on to overtake him at a great speed.

Until he died six years ago, Walker had insisted that the two of them being on the same road that day had been entirely coincidental, dismissing suggestions that the two had been racing.

But now, according to the Daily Mail, a former mechanic at Hawthorn's Tourist Trophy garage in Farnham has suggested the Formula One champion had in fact been talked into racing his friend Walker.